Meng gave him a smart, but amused, salute. “Lieutenant Meng, down from the north. On the biannual law enforcement audit, at least when my good-for-nothing driver decides to work. Do you happen to have a driver, Lieutenant?” she asked Huan. “Can we switch? My report goes straight to Beijing,” she added in a self-important tone. Without waiting for a reply, she turned to Lokesh. “Look at you!” she barked. “Who knows how you ever landed a government job!” She draped the jacket, an old uniform coat of Shan’s, over his shoulders, then turned to Huan. “Carry on, Lieutenant.”

Huan hesitated, as if trying to decide to challenge Meng, then she turned toward Shan. “What a disgrace this town is, Constable!” she shouted. “You should be ashamed! You’ll be hearing from Beijing!”

Another lightless smile crossed Huan’s lips, and he turned back to his men. “Carry on,” he repeated.

The knobs were still questioning the detained men when Meng’s car emerged from behind the station and drove out of town. Meng had to go to Lhasa, she had said, but he knew first she would deliver Lokesh back to the farmhouse. He watched the car disappear, wondering again why Meng was so abruptly trying to be engaged in his life, but immensely grateful that she had chosen to do so that morning. He went around the station, into the quarters at the rear, half expecting to see the young girl Kami and Meng’s companion, but they too had gone, and he realized Meng may have taken them. He absently picked up the child’s clothing, strewn on the floor, and laid it on the bed. He paused, looking at the strange, tiny clothes. Children were not of his world, had never been of his world—not even his son, Ko, who had been raised by Shan’s long-divorced wife.

On the bedstand there was a book with several markers in it, titled Comrades of Tibet. It was an overview of the customs and historical culture of Tibetans, published more than twenty years before during one of Beijing’s short-lived liberalizing periods, when discussion of separate indigenous cultures had been more palatable. Inside the front and back covers, Meng had made notes about Tibetan food, weather, traditional clothing, and festivals. The marked pages described features of Tibetan temples, dakini goddesses, the Bardo death ritual, and traditional sky burial, when mortal remains were surrendered to vultures to be returned to the cycle of life.

Shan was deep in thought as he climbed the back step of the station, deeply worried about what to do with Lokesh, whose advancing frailty might make it impossible for him to return to his outpost deep in the mountains. He walked past the cells and opened the door, then paused for a moment as he saw Choden, transfixed with fear.